


An Undeniable Truth

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [31]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: M/M, Memories, Post-SPECTRE, Reunions, Signs and Augurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 06:49:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14743971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: James Bond comes back from the dead on a Thursday, and in retrospect, Q should have seen it coming.





	An Undeniable Truth

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: If you look away at the right time, you might miss it. Prompt from this [generator](http://colormayfade.tumblr.com/generator).

James Bond comes back from the dead on a Thursday, and in retrospect, Q should have seen it coming.

He’s not someone who believers in augurs, in omens, is Q. He prefers the concrete, the factual, the kind of logic he can wrap his head around. Signs and symbols he’ll leave to cryptology; patterns, though, connections, events too similar to be coincidences--usually those are his forte. But something about this pattern slipped his notice. No. There was something about this pattern he didn’t want to believe.

In the early days, after Bond slipped away into the shadows, seemingly never to return, Q saw signs of him everywhere. Well, he’d been everywhere in Q’s life, all the places Q himself still haunted: his office, his floor, his flat. So maybe then it was not so odd that he’d spent those first weeks convinced that Bond was right behind him, lurking just out of reach, grinning, waiting until Q’s attention was focused elsewhere so he could spring, so he could show Q that the graying lion still had his touch.

There was more than one night when Q had been booted from dreams and awakened certain that Bond was stretched out behind him and that he need do was turn over and he’d see James again, head thrown back, throat bared, snoring quietly as he reveled in sleep. He’d always said he slept better in Q’s bed than his own and Q believed him; he’d never known Bond more relaxed, more at ease, more human that he was wound in Q’s sheets, all that brown, wounded skin kissing cotton and sighing, ever so gently, beneath the brush of Q’s hands. And so, on those nights when he’d awakened, he hadn’t turned over, hadn’t moved, so strong was his desire to believe that James was there. To not look, to not reach for the concrete meant that Q could have hope and there was some part of him, the heavy soft spot James had carved in his heart, that could not bear to let it go, that slim shimmer. That prayer.

In time, Bond’s ghost seemed not so close, but it lingered. At work, when M was prattling on about something or when R was giving her morning report. On the train, when the rest of the pack was driving themselves insensate with their phones or music or the _Times_. In the shower, sometimes, where Bond’s hands had been, where he’d seen them braced on the tile above his head as James bit at the back of his neck, beaming like he always did when he was close, when he knew he had Q on the edge.

“That’s it,” James would whisper, voice nearly lost in the sound of the spray. “That’s it, darling.”

Q learned to live with it, however reluctantly, Bond’s ever-presence. Even in absence, he was more real to Q than most of the people he interacted with every day.

It was silly. Stupid, even. But it was an undeniable truth.

Fall slipped away and winter took its place, buried London in the cold and the dark. When spring came, the wind whipped pink petals onto the steps of Q’s building, a flurry of beauty that swirled at his ankles and got caught in his shoes. He reached down and held his fingers out, let the petals brush his knuckles and sneak up his palm. They reminded him of Bond’s favorite flowers: cherry blossoms. These were their poorer, Anglified cousins, anyway. He’d never thought of Bond as sentimental, as a man who bothered to favor one flower over all others, but then, he’d never have thought to ask. Would’ve never known if James hadn’t brought it up, hadn’t backed into Q’s tiny hovel fresh off the plane from Kyoto and pressed something square and small into his hand. Q had wanted a kiss, jet lag and coworkers be damned, but Bond had demurred, tapping the little box he’d nudged into Q’s palm.

“On my way upstairs,” he said. “I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

Bond had smiled, the fox fading. “Take your pick.”

Q caught his wrist and swallowed it with long fingers. Squeezed. “You’re an insufferable tease.”

“No,” Bond said, “I’m a man who’s late for a meeting. Let me go and tend to your present, darling.”

“But--”

“I’m _late_ ,” Bond said again. “I just came down to--”

“Torture me,” Q said, “yes, I know. You are terribly predictable. You could’ve waited until after the debrief to show your face down here, and yet you insist on flaunting your relative proximity without letting me do a damn thing about it.”

In a flash, Bond had lashed out and kicked the door closed, crowded Q up against it. “Well,” he said, smoothing the sound over Q's mouth, “it has been two weeks. Surely M can muddle along without me for just a few minutes more.”


End file.
